Swimming Vs. Running – Which One Is Better For You?

Some Interesting Facts About Swimming And Running

• Both swimming and running are considered to be amazing cardiovascular exercises.
• Spending an hour of swimming can help you burn nearly 784 calories, which also depends on the stroke you swim with.
• Swimming is considered to be a complete workout of the body.
• Marco Polo is remembered as a traveler, but did you know that it is the name of a popular swimming game too!
• Swimming uses nearly all of your muscles like lower back, upper back, forearm, core abdominal, hamstrings, glutes, hip flexor muscles, etc.
• Even if you jog slowly, you would burn nearly 10 calories every minute while running.
• For children and teens, running helps in improving the growth of hormone.
• Running would keep your muscular system and mental status at the highest possible efficiency.
• Running is also beneficial in improving the blood clotting process to fight against various injuries.

Swimming – An Introduction

Swimming has been the best activity to carry when looking for a complete body exercise. From the children, teen, to the seniors, all can benefit according to their age. It not only helps you improve your physical health but mental health too. Swimming is a low impact exercise that provides you with better support than the earthly exercises. It also provides your body with a therapeutic cooling effect that adds some plus point to your health.

Swimming – Health Benefits

No doubt all the exercises have a good portion of the health benefit of your body. However, swimming has proved to be the best among all. Healthy for your body and mind, here are some of the smartest health benefits of swimming.

1. For Uplifting Social Well Being

Swimming is included in the list of social sports. The coaching classes contain trainees of every age at a time with a single coach in the pool. Hence, it brings you close to your family and friends to have a chat with them. This would give you the pleasure of exercise and relaxation together, which would also improve your mental health. Hence, swimming promotes social well-being that is beneficial to fight against stress, depression and anxiety.

2. Makes You Goal-Oriented

Swimming makes you goal oriented on both professional and personal grounds. It helps you in getting a goal in life and also creates the urge to obtain it through hard work. Whatever task you carry out in the pool like kicking the kickboard, improvising your lap time, etc. setting goals and achieving them is what you would learn from swimming. The teachings they get in the pool have also proved to be beneficial outside the pool in practical life. It helps you in building strong aims and makes you firm for achieving them too.

3. The Journey To Become Active Adults

When a kid swims from the childhood, it helps him in avoiding obesity problems from the childhood itself. The physical activity, swimming includes important elements like flexibility, endurance and strength, that help in increasing the dedication and other required skills, from the childhood, which proves to be too much crucial for adults. When swimming is carried as a habit from the childhood, it leads you to an active lifelong journey.

4. Makes You Smarter

Swimming on a regular basis helps in improving the thinking abilities and memory functions in an individual. This is beneficial to only during the education or office work but is also helpful as you grow. It decreases the inflammation levels in the body along with insulin resistance carried into the brain that cherishes the growth of new cells in the brain. Hence, swimming makes you smart, and improves levels like anxiety, mood, stress levels, etc. that helps your brain to work efficiently.

5. For Team Building Skills

The swimmers have an amazing team building skills while attending the swim classes. The swimmers learn important points like working together, encouraging other co-members, communication skills, leadership skills, and much more. All these skills help in making you smart leaders when adults. The team building skills, swimming help you with, boost goal orientation, collaboration, inspiration, coordination, strategic planning and development, etc. that help them in planning their career in a professional manner.

6. Burns More Calories

As compared to other exercises, swimming helps in burning more calories than other exercises do. Taking laps for nearly an hour would help you burn nearly 715 calories that is more as compared to other mediums to reduce calories in the body and maintain your weight. So, if you are looking for an effective way to deal with the calories, move for regular swimming. Hence, no matter whatever style you choose to swim, spending daily an hour in the water would help you lose a good portion of calories you intake.

7. Keeps You Younger For A Long Time

No doubt aging is a natural process that cannot be avoided, however, you can limit the process by remaining fit and healthy. Swimming can help you in delaying aging as it reduces the blood pressure levels, increases the muscle mass, increases the flow of oxygen and blood to the brain, and also boosts the health of your cardio. It increases your physical strength and also helps in balancing for the seniors. For those who are having problem with joint pain, swimming is actually beneficial as it increases the flexibility and reduces the inflammation of joints.

8. Helpful For Patients With Asthma

Are you suffering from chronic lung problems like asthma! Swimming would be helpful to you to a great extent. The patients of asthma suffer from loss of heat, moisture in the tubes of bronchial that leads to contraction, which happens when the air is dry or cold. Swimming would be quite helpful as the moisture from the water would be replaced at the time of vigorous breathing.

9. Boosts Your Confidence Levels

Swimming also helps in building up the confidence levels for those who lack it. Studies have proved that the swimmers are quite confident than the non-swimmers. It helps in building confidence not only in the pool, but also in the open water or say the land. So, boost your confidence levels with the help of swimming on a regular basis.


Hence, swimming helps to a great extent in getting a fit and healthy lifestyle and also in maintaining it.

Swimming Vs Running – Which Is Better?

Both swimming and running has their own health benefits, for both maintaining your health and reducing weight. However, when it comes to which is better, there are a few points that would help you in driving which exercise would help you to a great extent.

1. Beneficial Levels

Running is considered to be an efficient high-intense land exercise that would give you positive results when it comes to the growth of the bones. It also improves your cardio health and other respiratory functions. When it comes to swimming, the water-based exercise would help in reducing your water weight to a surprising percentage which reduces the stress levels your joints are suffering from. Hence, swimming helps your muscles and joints, while running works in increasing your bone mineral density.

2. Calories

When it comes to calories, no doubt both the exercises would help in this process, but running would burn more calories as compared to swimming. When undertaken both the activities for an hour, it was found that running burns nearly 986 calories, while swimming helps in burning 511 calories in lapping. Hence, if you are looking for burning a good portion of calories, running would be the best for you.

3. Muscles

When counting on muscles, both running and swimming would help you in lowering the muscles of the body. Nevertheless, swimming would help you with more better results when it comes to the upper body. The legs come with large and strong muscles that allows you to kick yourself forward while swimming in the water. They are also helpful in swimming along with other organs like glutes, quadriceps, calves and the hamstrings. Not only the legs, but the upper body and the arms are also active while swimming as they help in pulling your body through water. In the case of running, your upper body would move in an efficient way but is not as active as it would be in swimming. No doubt, both the exercises help in stabilizing the spine, but swimming would be the better option if want to tone up muscles.

4. Weight Loss

If you are looking for weight loss, running would be a better option for quick results. Generally, both the exercises work with equal effects on the body by dealing with the weigh and the body fat, but running for an hour on a regular basis would be advisable than swimming. Running has shown amazing results in merely a week by running 4 hours, but if you are going with swimming, along with an hour in the water, you will also have to look at the diet you would take for weight loss.


Hence, both running and swimming have their own plus points when it comes to exercising if carried on a regular basis. Moreover, it also depends on the selection you go with that matters. Like, the patients of arthritis should go with swimming as compared to running for getting desired results. But if your concentration is burning more calories, go for running. Hence, your health condition and preferences also matter to a great extent while selecting any of the form of exercise.

Reasons Why People Opt Swimming As Compared To Running

Here are some specific reasons why people are moving more towards swimming instead of running.

• The prime reason of selecting swimming is that they are able to work out in an environment that is weightless.
• Running can lead to injuries like inflammation, muscle strain, joint problems, etc. as it is a high-impact exercise. Swimming is just the opposite. It is a low-impact exercise that can be done with age no bar.
• Swimming helps you in drying with a good speed as compared to sweating which happens due to running. You can easily go and change as soon as you are done with swimming.
• To increase your exercise while swimming, you can also use other toys or props like long fins, paddles, short fins, pull buoy, snorkel, kick board, and many more.
• From the tip to the toe, swimming takes a complete body activity from the complete body. Whatever stroke you work with would involve your complete body exercising for its own benefits.
• Swimming improves your level of flexibility, motion, and strength while functioning in the water. It makes your joints incredibly strong from the core and stable too.
• Helps you in getting rid of tension and other stress levels when performed in groups.
• Swimming gives you a variety of options to swim with, that eliminates the word boredom from your dictionary.
• While swimming, your body gives out extra blood and oxygen that helps your brain in becoming more focused, awake and alert. It hence, makes you smart by relaxing your brain/mind, and improves your balance, muscular capabilities, and bone density.
• Those who hate getting sweaty, swimming is the best way to exercise without it. No doubt your body sweats when you swim, but when compared to running or other exercises, it is less.
• Swimming helps you in getting into that desired perfect body shape with an appropriate tone.

Hence, although swimming is considered as the best option when it comes to selection against running, running cannot also be ignored as it too contains a good number of health benefits. Swimming gives you good results in half an hour, while running requires an hour of your day. So, if you are standing on the edge to select any of them, go for swimming to give your body a complete workout, leading you to a healthy life, or else consult your doctor before selecting any of them for your betterment.